In introductory interviews to Islamist websites, Saleh Al-Qaraawi, the newly-appointed al Qaeda chief in the Levant (Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinian territories) threatens to loose a fresh wave of attacks on US and Israeli targets as well as UN peacekeepers in South Lebanon. debkafile's counter-terror sources report Al Qaraawi is presented as Commander of the "Abdullah Azzam Brigades" and an appointee of al Qaeda's No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.  
 

The Gaza Strip's 1.2 million inhabitants are described by foreign visitors with great pathos as starving, homeless and hopeless - and all because of the Israeli embargo. A new Egyptian report cited by debkafile presents facts and figures exposing the Palestinian territory's hidden economic boom, engendered by the huge "tunnel industry" and Israeli cash, which fill the markets with luxuries and enrich the Hamas rulers.

A Hamas cross-border attack on Israeli forces outside Kissufim Friday, March 26, killed an officer, Maj. Eliraz Peretz, Dep. Commander of Golani 12 battalion, 31, from Eili, and 1st Sgt. Ilan Seviatsovsky, 21 from Rishon Lezion.
Two Israeli soldiers were also injured in the heavy fighting which followed when an Israeli tank and artillery force which crossed in to shell the attackers was ambushed by a second Hamas unit firing anti-tank weapons and bombs. Israel says Hamas is accountable for the attack.

The firefight flared Monday, March 22, when Palestinian infiltrators were sighted already inside Israel in the Kissufim sector. An Israeli tank force opened fire and when the Palestinians fled back into the Gaza Strip, gave pursuit. A Golani infantry unit mistook the tank force for the fleeing Palestinian gunmen and fired, killing one of the tank crew, Sgt. Gabriel Cepic, 21, from Zichron Yaacov.   
debkafile's military sources ...

Al Qaeda fighters from Iraq and Pakistan have infiltrated Gaza through the tunnels and introduced motor-cycle-mounted attacks by RPG-wielding terrorists to Palestinian extremist groups, debkafile reports. Friday night, March 19, three pairs of motorbike riders crashed through Gaza's border fence and opened RPG and automatic fire on Israelis soldiers. This time, they missed and swerved back.

debkafile's military sources report that a bitter feud within the Popular Committees, climaxing in a failed attempt to murder the group's leader Zakaria Doghmush, triggered the mortar volleys against the Kerem Shalom goods crossing and missile attack on Ashkelon Thursday, Jan. 8.  It also marks weakened Hamas control.

The year 2010 will see a new Israeli military operation in Gaza - not against the Palestinian Hamas, but the al Qaeda bastions spreading across the southern Gaza Strip, say intelligence circles close to the Obama administration and the CIA. They say the strengthened al Qaeda networks in the Gaza Strip would be as menacing as their strongholds in Yemen.

debkafile's intelligence sources report that Cairo has stepped up its siege measures against the Hamas-ruled Gaza. To cut off its smuggling routes through Sinai, Egypt is reinforcing the wall of iron plates with a new pipe for flooding the smuggling tunnels with Mediterranean water.
Cairo ...